As long as I can remember, I’ve been fascinated with the fire service. I suspect some of that comes from watching the TV show, Emergency! when I was growing up. I also love bicycling, and ended up working in the bicycle industry instead of the fire service. However, since my teenage years, I’ve listened to first responders on radio scanners. Somewhere along the way, I got into photography, and started photographing fire apparatus. I started my website D/FW Fire Equipment News to share my photos and information about new fire apparatus in the area. Eventually, I managed to form some good relationships with the local fire departments and was granted access to fire scenes to photograph. I’ve truly enjoyed the opportunities in recent years to help document the work of first responders, especially in the fire service. I realize that many events I photograph are very tragic for the victims and first responders, but I hope that good may still come from my photos for training, history, public education, and more.

I work a full-time, day job, and photograph on the side as a hobby. However, I have a very flexible job, and can often get away to work in photographing local fire service special events. If you have some interesting training, a new apparatus, or other fire service excitement that you want photographed, shoot me a message. I might be able to help.

As always, firefighters and fire departments that I’ve photographed are welcome to use my photos. If you need or want original unedited files from my cameras, that can probably be arranged. The photos posted here are scaled down, and may not print as well as the larger files from the cameras. If anyone wants to use any of my photos for commercial purposes, please contact me first.

Please share with and tag your friends, family members, and coworkers. I think that greatly increases the number of people who will see the photos, and I appreciate that.

Thank you to my first responder friends for our relationships. I welcome corrections and clarifications. If you see I’ve made a mistake in one of my posts, please let me know.

Equipment: I use Nikon Z8 and D850 SLR cameras. Normally I have a Nikon 24-70mm F2.8 on one, and a 70-200mm F2.8 on the other. I also use a couple of GoPros and a DJI Action camera.

You can email me at “ben” dot “saladino” at “gmail.com”.